The fire chief’s daughter
lifted her nightgown,
slid down the stairs
with one hand
over her mouth.

Slip out of bed,
drop to the floor.
Crawl
to the landing.

The fire chief lit a wooden match,
set a cotton ball alight.
Smoke rose
when he blew it out
and his daughter bowed
to the detector’s shriek.

Dreams of flames
eating the walls,
tongue of fire
swallowing her whole.

The monster beneath her bed
never bothers with claws and teeth.

The fire chief’s daughter,
alone
when the sirens blow,
makes deals with the God of fire:

let me knot my sheets
faster
than the flames lick
and you can devour my home.

________________________________________

first draft, rough draft…

They ask for mashed potatoes
and she imagines
slicing the pale calves
her daughter called prickly
into neat cubes,
boiling with salt,
mashing them into fleshy mounds.

Loaded invitation
in the child’s backpack,
requesting families,
feasting,
preparation of food
in warm homes
with steamed windows.

One person – gravy,
next item on the list.
She climbs into the big silver pot
simmers until her juices run brown
as the crazed river
she could not keep from the basement.

Eat any dish delivered from a broken home
at your own risk.
Roast turkey will put down roots in the belly
strong as the claws that reach
from the great tree keeping the light
from her kitchen.

Four people — bite-
sized desserts–small joy
at the end of the feast.
Beware the pie
with sorrow baked in—
its feathers will stick in your throat.

She settles on sending in knives
and forks, not implements of torture
but sharp reminders
of what is needed to survive.

_____________________________________

this poem is definitely raw–as in, half-baked, not yet ready for consumption.  i mean, where is the stuffing?

First, tell a man you hardly know
how you lie in the dark,
listening
to the hiss and spit of flames in your walls.

Let him stop you,
drop to the floor,
roll with you to a safer room.

Do not fear what is hot to the touch.

Look up fire in the dictionary,
it’s etymology, its other uses.

Swallow it whole.

Discover fire is no more than chemistry.
The body remembers chemistry:
the soft flames,
the darting tongue
the searing that cooks from within.

Embrace rapid oxidation, combustion.
Observe your own release of heat and light,
chart your reaction time.

Allow conflagration to loll on your tongue,
wildfire
          arson
                  firestorm.
Let pyromania pass your lips,
see how it does not destroy.

Believe the man in the dark helmet
wielding an axe,
when he says fire
is only a hazard
when the blaze is out of control.

__________________________________________

i am writing a poem-a-day in november…some will make it here, some will never leave the pages of my journal.  writing every day after going a long stretch without writing anything is like, well, like having sex after a long time having none.  it makes me say, wow!  why don’t i do this more often?

but the female slipping
down a slice of web
in the shower
terrifies her.
Not the sting of venom,
not the eight legs crawling her wet breast
but the not knowing
how to help.

What do I do?
The uncertainty strands her at the far end of the tub.
How to save this mother
babies riding in her belly
or on her back.
The wet woman
can’t be sure without her glasses,
but instinct tells her this skydiver is a mother
and there are children involved.

She holds out a razor,
an instrument of purchase
for the eight waving legs
(surely they are waving,
not drowning,
not yet),
but the spider refuses,
swings like an acrobat
out and back
coming to rest on the towel bar.

Shaving her twin legs after the rescue-
that-wasn’t-a-rescue,
she watches her own blood
catch in the drain’s lip
lose its color
until it is nothing more than shower water,
the shin-skin she nicked
as dead as the cells she shed
beneath her ring finger
all those years.

You’d think it would be like looking in a mirror
Wonder Woman at my front door,
her blue eyes staring into my own twin skies.
In the space of five inches—the safety of the door frame
and the golden chain—I see we were not separated
at birth but born a generation apart.

She has come with a superhero casserole,
hot food being the key that unlocks
most doors, chained, bolted or padlocked.

Kicking off her golden boots, Wonder Woman tells me
why my marriage failed
why my floors are always filthy
why now, a woman on my own,
the house is rebelling.

Using her cape as an apron,
Wonder Woman spoons hot cheese
and noodles on two plates from the good china,
the china that’s never been used,
dust from the wedding making new patterns
on the spring flower border.

Between bites, Wonder Woman tells me why
my forks are disappearing
why the light bulbs keep blowing,
why the bathtub leaks into the basement
how the mold on the window sills
spells my name as it grows.

Wonder Woman squeezes my shoulder with soapy hands
as she washes the dishes,
points to the lasso hanging from her waist.
Too late
too late
I realize I forgot to tell her about my super power—
how I read lips
from across a room
how I lost the instructions
how I understand nothing
when it is right in front of me.

That woman tied to a chair
cannot see her wings.
She was once her own king
and queen, until the ruler’s ruler
ruled she was no longer a subject
but the still-life. Punishment—
the paint brushes with bristles severed
easels with screws loosened
canvases shorn in jigsaw pieces.
Even the windows mock her,
their black mold forming messages
in a foreign tongue. This kingdom
once a utopia of free kisses, roofs
of mouths wide like caves
open for exploring.
What unusual luck, the blacksmith come
to shoe her horse: the mare dead,
his sharpened awl sliding perfectly inside
the heart of her throbbing knot.

I fasten the chains around his neck
wind them in a slow dance down his body—
steel girder wrapped in silver—
secure the final link to a bolt in the floor,
step away with the key
tucked in my sequined hollow.

I am the magician’s wet nurse.
I wipe the tears as he mourns his illusion
unfasten the chains when he discovers
he is indeed impotent
not magic but fallible—
mortal as your run of the mill businessman
locked out of his own home again.

I am the star of the show.
My pale hands wave like moth wings
in and around the magician’s black caped torso
reminding the audience
this man is a mystery
a landscape too dark to navigate.

Things That Decided to Perish After You Left, and Why This Is a Good Thing

The summer fern rescued
from the bench by the lake,
dropping one round-tipped leaf
at a time from the inside out
until only brown skeleton
bones are left. You had a good run, fern.
I hardly knew you were dead,
so disguised was your decay.

The yellow daisies
forced to bloom
in the supermarket
thinly veiled
as still-life
on the kitchen table where now only three eat.
I draw ovals around your flowerhead
five-petaled thing that is its own fruit.
I can not get it right.
The painting goes unfinished,
the flowers bend and wilt,
sad dancers.

Tangerine molly
pretty fish family fish
plays well with others.
Born swimming, you trust the universe
to float you in a community where live-bearing bears fry.
Forgive our ignorance,
your arranged marriage to a red devil,
your eventual disappearance.

It is winter—
season of blanketing what is living
with what is great and white.
We are all prey.
The children are eaten by the school bus.
The heat eaten by ice.
The icicles jailing us remain dragon’s teeth.
When the children return
we will break the daggers with our hands
smash them on the snow-covered driveway
in celebration of what has been lost.

*******************************************

this started out as a list poem, but quickly chose its own path. * process note: last stanza could border on melancholy/trite/maudlin…how to make winter not a cliche? winter is its own cliche…